Bored in Literature (Written at 10:30 AM CET)

I am sitting in my Literature class right now putting pen to paper the old fashioned way to give you a post, because if I am going to do anything literary today, I've decided it will be on my own terms

Obviously, because I have been holding off on writing, I am somewhat lazy and not a consistent writer. I never have been. From the 6th-12th grades, I only received one A in English, and that was partially because I was friends with the teacher's son.

So now that I've made my lame excuse that my cyber dog ate my blogpost, I will finally break my hermit status. I don't even know where to begin...(it's been that long)

Three weekends ago, my friend Tobias and I went to the SC Freiburg soccer match against Mainz. Freiburg won 1-0 on a late penalty taken by Papiss Demba Cisse. It was extremely exciting because Mainz is the number 2 team in the league. Our standing places were on the south side of the stadium, which means we were closer to the field and it was less dense. A good experience overall.

I'll lump this in here: Sometime between now and that game, I got an email from YouTube saying my soccer video I posted was a violation of a copyright held by the German Football League. LAME. My video only semi had their song in it. It was mostly of the other people around singing.

My pen just died, but I have another.

The next thing of importance (I can't even begin to think about an accurate timeline, so bear with me) is that I have made some plans to travel. My first trip is a big one, a full 45 minute train ride to Basel, Switzerland. Does anyone who reads this know Marc Alexander? Yeah, me neither...just kidding Marc. (He'll never read this, but in case he does), he's a very ________ kid.

Anyway, last year his family hosted an exchange student from Basel. I had the chance to meet him during Parent's Weekend or sometime in the Fall, and spoke with him in German. I hadn't really seen him since, but we are friends on Facebook so it wasn't hard to keep in contact if we wanted. He messaged me a few weeks ago and asked if I have been to Basel yet. I said I haven't yet, then he said I could come anytime to visit. So I said, "December 11th." He had to get back to me to see if he was free.

If you can get context clues, then you can tell that he wasn't busy. I suggested we go to an FC Basel soccer match (I like soccer if you couldn't tell) on the 12th. He said that game is actually in Zurich. Now I am also going to Zurich that weekend. I plan on staying with Martin (is his name) the first day, then taking a train with him to Zurich to the game, come back to Basel and then take the train back to Freiburg that night. Of course, I will take and post pictures, Dad.

My other travel plans include a Christmas trip to Munich to stay with my second host family, the Gigl's for a little more than a week. Not that I don't want to stay in Freiburg or that I'm sick of it, but everyone else goes home for Christmas or even on some weekends, and it's sort of like my home in Germany. And it should be fun. I'm definitely looking forward to not having to cook every meal. Pasta gets old, so do turkey sandwiches. Oh and frozen pizzas too, no matter how many toppings I put on myself. My Texas Chili, however, is always good. Back on track...it's finally 11 AM, only 45 minutes more of hearing about Thomas Mann in German this week...

Train travel is not so cheap in Europe. A trip to Basel and another one to Munich cost a pretty penny, even when booked in advance. That's why there is this great thing called BahnCard 50. I recently purchased this BahnCard 50 discount card that gives you, you guessed it, 50 percent off all domestic tickets. What a deal, right? You haven't even heard the deal yet. This BahnCard 50 card costs 237 Euros normally is good for a whole year, but for students under the age of 27, it is only 118 Euros. Still 118 Euros is a lot of dough, but the savings are huge. A trip to Munich two days prior to Christmas and the return trip being the day after New Years will run you 168 Euros! This is a head spinning amount. Since I bought the BahnCard 50, I get half off or a savings of around 80 Euros. The card is 118, so it has almost already paid for itself. And that was only one trip. Revolutionary.

Christmas is a special time in Germany. I guess I don't really notice it as much at home because I'm always with Jews. All the time. Christmas here for me means 2 things: Kartoffelpuffen and Snow! Yes, it snowed. Not like Texas snow, it stayed on the ground and snowed for consecutive days. It was somewhere between 5-10 centimeters, so what did I do when I woke up last Friday morning? I called Tobias to see if he wanted to go to the big mountain that overlooks the city.
He was already there.

He met me in the main town area, and we went back up. I took some pictures. I plan on doing a photo dump on here later on. We climbed to the top and I went up in the tower and took more pictures. Later we had a snowball fight. I kicked his ass. Thanks Westbury Little League. They only play cricket in Australia, so they have no idea how to throw properly.

Kartoffelpuffen. What the heck is that? I'll tell you that it is a compound, funny sounding German word... for Latke. But they don't know it. From November 22nd until December 23rd, there is a large festival called Weihnachtsmarkt in a town square. A Christmas market. You can go any time of the day, but it is much more crowded at night. You can find lots of small booths with people selling Christmas themed stuff (or junk, in my opinion). There is also food and drink. I know what you're thinking, German's can't drink beer when it's freezing outside. And you'd be right. Instead of ice cold beer, there is another alcoholic substance of choice (not Vodka, wrong country) called Glühwein. I'm not exactly sure what "Glüh" means, but basically it's spiced red wine heated up. Strange, strange concept. And, if you are really an alcoholic, you can get your Glühwein spiked with rum or brandy.

Now to the food. I went to the festival with a few friends without having eaten dinner. I was scared they would only have pork to eat, but to my surprise, I found Kartoffelpuffen. There is a stand that serves these latkes and you can even get them served with Apfelmuß (applesauce)!!! [Note: Australians don't know what applesauce is] It was just like Hanukkah, so I was really happy. I am going to go back on Wednesday night and get some to eat for the first night. Unfortunately, I don't have a Hanukiah here. I'll have to think of something. Make-shift Menorah, that's alliteration. I learned something in Literature today.

I'll stop here. Expect photos and a post about basketball in the future. It's 11:33, class is over at 11:45. Time to learn more about Mann and Adorno.

Adam

Updates

I have been extremely lacking in posting to this blog. (Sorry, mom)

I am going to explain exactly what I’ve been doing for the last two weeks (besides class, of course).

Two weekends ago (Friday the 22^nd), a group of other international students, of whom I know a few, decided to rent this “contraption” called a Bierbike (yes, like Beer) for 2 hours. We rented this huge wagon, powered by pedaling, that has room for 12 people to pedal, four to just sit and two to stand in the middle.

The reason it is called Bierbike is because the service comes with beer. While you pedal and ride around the city, you have 40L of beer for everyone.

It was quite awesome, and we got lots of funny looks from everyone we rode by in downtown. Not only was it fun, it was a great workout. However, I did hurt my leg when my foot slid off the pedal, causing my leg to hit a metal board on the bike. I took a break from pedaling, and still enjoyed the adventure. I’m fine.

The next day, I got to do something that I have wanted to do for a really long time. My friend Tobias and I went to a Bundesliga (German Soccer League) match. It was SC Freiburg against Kaiserslautern, an important match for Freiburg to win.

Early on, Kaiserslautern scored a goal to take the 1-0 lead. But Freiburg hit back right before halftime to take a 1-1 tie to the second half with a goal from Papiss Demba Cisse, the leading scorer in the Bundesliga (at the time).

In the second half, Freiburg dominated the game, with substitute Stefan Reisinger giving them the lead in the 60^th minute. The crowd was really pumped up at this point, with people jumping up and down and singing the club cheers. Yes, I already learned some of SC Freiburg’s theme song.

The game ended 2-1 for Freiburg, and it was an amazing first experience at a European soccer match. So amazing, that I have tickets to tomorrow’s game against Mainz, the second place team in the Bundesliga. Should be a highly entertaining match.

IMPORTANT: WATCH THIS VIDEO I TOOK AT THE GAME AND PUT ON YOUTUBE
It's really cool....just saying.

During the week, I just had classes. Nothing too exciting, but I finally feel as though I’m settled in to my class schedule.

Last weekend was on the more chill side; basically I did nothing for Halloween. I don’t have classes on Fridays, as my loyal readers know. So from Thursday afternoon until Tuesday I had no responsibilities (Yes, I said Tuesday, because of the Christian Holiday, All Saints Day, all class were cancelled on Monday).

Friday night to Saturday was the birthday of one of my suitemates. She had a party at an apartment of a friend. I went with two of my other suitemates, but unfortunately for me, I don’t have a bicycle (just a Bierbike). The problem is the buses and streetcars don’t operate very late. As a result, I had to walk 4 kilometer (2.5 miles) home alone at 2 AM. It wasn’t all that bad and probably was good exercise. It was a fun night.

I really did nothing on Saturday, and just watched football on Sunday.

On Monday, I went hiking in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald) with Tobias and three of his suitemates. We took a train from Freiburg eastward to the Titisee, about a 40-minute ride. When we got there, we took a few pictures of the lake and then started to hike.

Titisee

Black Forest (Schwarzwald)

View from Hochfirst

Cool Paragliding

Again, Paragliding (unfortunately, not me doing it)

The city of Neustadt

The hike was very tough at times, going uphill at pretty high angles. Our range of elevation was 400 meters, so it was a lot of up and down. In total we calculated we hiked 10 kilometers in 2 hours with some breaks for pictures and water.

It was really fun and strenuous, but I enjoyed talking with Tobias and his suitemates about American TV series and the election.

Speaking of which, I stayed up until 6 AM on Tuesday to watch the election results on Fox News. It was a very interesting night and the direction of American politics is definitely changing for the better. I am already looking forward to the presidential election in 2012. It should be an exciting time.

Alright, I am going to go enjoy my weekend, after all, it is Thursday afternoon, which means I am done for the week. I'm really excited for SC Freiburg vs. Mainz on Saturday.

Until next time (I promise to write sooner than later),

Adam